Qatar Airways will be world’s first to use futuristic flight tracking system

Come 2018 and travelling by Qatar Airways will become even safer.

The country’s national carrier has signed on to become the world’s first airline to use space-based flight tracking solution GlobalBeacon, developed by Aireon-FlightAware.

Once implemented, Qatar Airways will be able to track its aircraft on a minute-by-minute basis, thanks to Aireon’s space-based Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) technology.

The data will be fed into FlightAware’s system, which includes information on a flight’s origin, destination, flight plan route, position and estimated time of arrival.

Qatar Airways said GlobalBeacon will enable it to meet the International Civil Aviation Organisation’s mandate that aircraft autonomously transmit location every minute during emergency circumstances, which is set to take effect in 2021.

“We’ll be the first airline in the world to have the capability to use worldwide satellite air surveillance to support our airline operations and to achieve the highest of flight tracking standards ahead of the ICAO 2021 mandate,” said Qatar Airways CEO Akbar Al Baker.